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Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Weekend in The Land of Smiles II

Let me tell you why do they call it 'The Land of Smiles'.

at a sandal shop in Chatucak Weekend Market,

at a lamp decoration shop, also in Chatucak Weekend Market

I wasn't kidding when I tell you that people here smile A LOT. MasyaAllah, no wonder smile is sadaqah. We were walking through the market and no one call us to buy this and that. No one. You can try things on and just leave without buying, and they'll give you a BIG smile and say, ขอบคุณค่ะ kop khun kha ( thank you- for women).

When we were bargaining (which most of the time we failed to do so since its a fixed price), the guy (who was selling CDs just SMILE and said, "ten", and we said, "eight". He smiled again, and said, "ten", and we said "eight". Yes, we left, thinking that other stalls might sell it for "eight" to us. But no, all of the other stalls said, "ten", and smiled. So, we went back to the first guy, SMILE, give him 10(100Bh), he smiled, give us the CD, we smiled again and left. No frustration whatsoever.

Shopping never felt so relaxing. When you go to Pavillion or One Utama in KL, if you just leave, not buying anything, the shopkeeper would give you a "if you can't afford it, why bother coming in"- face.

I saw a pair of cute flip-flops, and I didn't know who to ask - for the price. There were so many people there, it was noisy, and I was mumbling...

"How much eh.."
and the young lady besides me said, "Which one do you like?".
In my head, "oh, the shopkeeper is too pretty and very nice-modestly dressed to be a shopkeeper", and I said "This pink one".
She called the other guy, asked him (in Thai language) how much is the pink one, and she asked me my size.
I said, "38-39?"
Later she said, "Do you want to try it on?", which I did, and she said, "The pink looks good".

It was a 150Bh slippers, and I realized that she was trying a pair as well.

We asked her mother (which we then realized that she was also a customer), how to get to MBK Mall, and they were very lovely indeed. Smileeeee all the way.

MasyaAllah.

Chatucak Weekend Market is a MUST GO in Bangkok.

We found this "Forget Me Not" Muslim cafe, and ordered 'Thai Ice Coffee' (left) and 'Thai Coffee plus Thai Tea' (the one on the right) and it tasted better than Coffee Beans or Starbucks.

Seriously.

It was THAT good. The mix of Coffee and Tea in one drink somehow confuses me, but MasyaAllah.. it makes me think of how good things can be in the real paradise.

Stalls like these goes along the street from BTS National Stadium station (in front of MBK Mall) till Siam Station.

We couldn't find any money changer that operates at 10pm, so shopping has to stop there. Didn't buy much, but spend exactly RM1000 for the weekend (including hotel, which was a great bargain as well ^-^).

We wanted to get on a Tuk Tuk like this dude. (Now we know why isit called a Tuk-Tuk. It horns, tuuukk-tuuukk!!)... But look at the traffic.. =(

I didn't feel like feeding myself with more carbon-monoxide if I were to take a Tuk Tuk back to the hotel. It's only one station away, 15Bh - where a Tuk Tuk costs 100Bh. yikes!

Maybe, its because I haven't had any Malaysian fruits, all the fruits I had in this miracle city taste simple delicious.